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June 18, 2015May 29, 2016

Positive Ethnocentrism.

Firstly let me tell you something very important. Honestly this isn’t my aim to criticise any mankind or any kind of man’s behaviour. This write up is based on a research about ethnocentrism.
There is a term in sociology called Ethnocentrism. Its meaning is very simple to understand. A man is thinking that he is superior and understanding that other men are inferior. So we can say that the man with the superiority complex is being ethnocentric.
According to Google’s meaning. Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture. Ethnocentric individuals judge other groups relative to their own ethnic group or culture, especially with concern for language, behavior, customs, and religion.
Ethnocentrism isn’t good for developing society because this process is consider as a destructive process. Ethnocentric people can affect other people’s psychology in a particular society. But when ethnocentrism exist and how? This question is little bit tough but if we observe this world with eagle eye, we will come to k ow the fact very easily and effectively.
Ethnocentrism is a negative term in sociology. If we accept the sociological meaning of ethnocentrism, we are right. But if we want to know a positive aspect of ethnocentrism, sociological meaning isn’t important. But if we want to know the positive ethnocentrism, we have to think out of the box. Probably illogically or differently than usual.
The fact is very simple. Superiority complex exists because of inferiority complex and it is a social and scientifically approved by some psychologists.
Here is an example. A man who is very dumb in commerce and he wants to know everything about arts too. He went to USA for a higher education and now he is feeling shy among hundreds of powerful, youthful brains. He is not good in commerce but he don’t know anything about arts also. He joins a commercial institute in Boston. He acts like he is a genius of commerce and arts in India and he has come to Boston to know bout American commercial systems. He also tells people about Indian culture’s superiority and ignores other’s point of views. He acts like he is the only guy in the world who knows both the subjects very well and he is the super genius.
He was feeling inferior among hundreds of people so he took step of being superior and he became ethnocentric. This process of being ethnocentric is called ethnocentrism.
But how can it be a positive, of course it was destructive process and its not good for people. But that man influenced many people’s psychology in a different manner. Many people who wasn’t aware of Indian culture got information and many of them had flunked in examination but by seeing that man’s knowledge, people started studying seriously and started working hard as they wanted to make their mark in that man’s heart by defeating him in the field. That was constructive as many people started studying in a serious manner to succeed in their lives. But this type of process is very rare in nature.
Let’s talk about psychological ethnocentrism. Let us take an example.
A man who is rich and honest with deeds and he has a posh car and a handsome style. A woman is searching for a perfect match, meets him and have a little chat. She discovers a quaint ego inside his heart. She rejects him because for that one reason. She finds a perfect match afterwards but what happens to that rich fellow.
That man tries to change his nature because he at last realized his nature that was egoistic. He tries to be modest. After all the huge credit goes to that woman who helped to change a man’s nature. Other man tries to be like that man and they become ethnocentric psychologically about that man is nothing but he has born with a golden spoon in his mouth. They feel like nobody can become richer. Richness is just a status and that status conflict leads to the psychological ethnocentrism.
But the another reality is ethnocentrism is a social term and in sociology it is only concerned with cultural aspects.
Status and roles’ conflicts can be destructive as they lead to cultural imbalance but we can’t coordinate it with ethnocentrism.
A man who is from one religion can’t blame other religion for religious conflicts because conflicts exist as a bad result in maintaining a good atmosphere in society and a fine balance in culturally formed society.
But in terms of religion and knowledge about spirituality, ethnocentrism means a lot. A man can go beyond his emotions and imaginations to create a religious conflict but it starts with the only term called ethnocentrism. A man who supports Hinduism, islamism is nothing for him. That man thinks like that, with a narrower psychology that his own culture and traditions and other aspects such as religion and norms are greater than any other culture in this world. According to his belief, other cultures are worthless and his culture is the best.
This ethnocentrism happens because of our psychologically imbalanced and logically weak brain. Our brain has not enough knowledge about other culture as we live in our own world and live with our own culturally patterned lives. We live with our social norms which are planned by the members of a particular society. We aren’t aware of other cultures and that is why we feel like our culture is the best. We don’t think negative about our own culture because we know the things which are happening around us regularly and occasionally. We know his to behave in a socially approved manner but we don’t have the proper, accurate and adequate knowledge about other cultures and that is why ethnocentrism exists in every particular society.
Ethnocentrism can be a negative term in any way as it leads to numbers of conflicts but if we assume properly and get knowledge about other cultures accurately then one day we will come to know that cultures are just a way of life and hence numerous people has given their own views about cultures and that led to the existence of many cultures. Cultures are many but a way of life is the only one and it is made up of only 10 letters – ‘ Positivity ‘.
If we will try to understand that other cultures and religions have their own big stories about their existence, we will surly walk on a right path, on a right way without being ethnocentric about culture, about religion, about knowledge, about thoughts. But with a positive ethnocentrism about life and the way how we live it and how we survive.
Because nobody wins the life, we only conquer the death at the end of life, we don’t show off, but we just show how successful we are and that’s our human nature, that’s our psychology. We live with the inferiority complex and try to be superior but superiority complex is little beneficial if we know how to control it. If we will know, how to control it then we will prove the law of the ‘survival of the fittest’.
We just have to keep one thing in the mind that we are human beings and being ethnocentric is our nature and we can’t get rid of it and to control it we just have to think positively about ourselves and about other people in this society, in this beautiful world.
We just have to think wisely and with honor to be a good human being we just have to be a positive ethnocentric.

— Digant Surti.

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Published by Digant J. Surti

Hi Digant Surti here.
I am a passionate writer.
I usually write in Gujarati, sometimes in Hindi and occasionally in English.
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